The sky was on fire, the setting sun having ignited the clouds over the sea to the west. The air on this late summer's evening in the Cornish fishing village of Padstow was heavy with romance. The day was going down, the lights were coming up, and as I sat near the waterfront in one of the sexiest sportscars in the world the street was still swarming with happy, smiling people.Later, collecting moths on the windscreen as I clipped over the high downs, I saw the full moon rise yellow over the valley from the leathern comfort of the driving seat. There was just me, my eleven-year old daughter, this elegant car and the long and lovely evening. I could have wanted for no more.The lineage of Alfa Spiders (a name corrupted from the original term "speeders" once used for all open-topped cars) can incredibly be traced back to 1910 when a 24 horsepower Alfa first rolled out into the sun its occupants would come to worship. Nearly 100 years on and with a 1000% hike in power, today's top Spider gives ground to none of its predecessors in the looks department.The driving experience too is to be savoured from before you even get in. Stride towards the car, thumbing the blipper and the doors unlock. Get in, stab the fob into a slot in the dashboard and jab the start button, and the four exhaust pipes trumpet the waking of the big V6. Click the stubby stick into the first of the six gears, drop the brake and you're away. It almost takes longer to say it than do it.For me the ride is near perfection. I could chuck it around with gay abandon and produce almost no body roll. I've heard others describe it as harsh but after many hundreds of miles on everything from motorway to dug-and-plugged back lanes I strongly disagree.The complicated sensor-based dual-zone climate control sounded clever but was the bane of my two-week loan. It tried so hard to please, but it seemed to have a mind of its own, turning on the air-con to achieve the dial-in temperature, whether or not I'd just turned it off a few minutes ago. Knowing that it saps fuel efficiency, and reading on the computer that I was only getting around 17mpg around the lanes, I neither needed nor wanted it on.The Spider isn't built for practicality, but it's got a useful 200 litres of storage space, split between the well-like boot that goes down and back under the roof-storage area, and the two lockable boxes in the cabin behind the seats.The bottom line is, I can forgive the Spider the few niggles because of the huge grin it put on my face every time I looked at it. It's cool, it's rare and it's gorgeous, and I like to think I maybe caught a little bit of its reflected glory during our two-week summer holiday romance. Engine 3179cc, 6cylinders Power 240bhp @6200rpm Torque 213ib/ft @4800rpm Transmission 6 speed manual Fuel/CO2 21.4mpg / 315g/km Acceleration 0-62mph: 6.3sec Top speed 150mph Price From £27663.00 approx Release date 14/07/2003